All Forum Posts by: Christian Bernhagen

@John Warren Thank you for the advice John! I have not had the opportunity to meet you in person, however I have been to the Midwest Networking Seminar with Brie Schmidt and have also been on a couple of your webinars. In terms of being too conservative on the house hacking calculations, I always do an analysis of what I would pay living in one unit and then an analysis of the building with all tenants in. I always strive to have at least $400/unit as my threshold, but those deals are extremely hard to find right now unless I can obtain some off-market opportunities. I also made the mistake when I put in an offer on my River Grove and Elmwood Park properties that I had the sufficient funds to cover the down payment and closing costs, but I did not have any back up emergency reserves in case unexpected expenditures come about. Let's keep in touch John as I would love to have the opportunity to work with you in the future once I increase my reserves a little more.

@Louis Jeffries Hi Louis! Thank you for the advice. I never thought about house hacking in the way you said "living where you want to live is priority over creating an investment opportunity." This is very true and I will have to consider what I am willing to sacrifice. I have looked at the 203k loan, but I am not sure why I did not go about that in more detail as a potential option. Also, I may be wrong, but I believe in order to obtain a 3-4 unit building I need somewhere around 2 months+ of reserves which, in this case, I do not have enough for in the areas I was looking at considering down payment, financing costs, etc.

@Allen L.

Thank you Allen! Did you invest in Chicago specifically or are you based out of San Fran. entirely? I will definitely take your recommendation and look into the 203k loan. I currently have financing in place, so I definitely will ask for the loan to be adjusted to conform to 203k standards compared to the normal FHA loan. I will be in touch once if I find anything out!

Thanks for the advice Victor! Did you use a broker to find this house hack or do you have a license (I got mine in October but still need to sign with a brokerage)?.  I was thinking about renting by room, but was hesitant to go that route as I thought tenants would have issues living in such close quarters. That’s good to know you haven’t had issues. Do you do month-to- month leases for them or longer? Also what has your experience been with Airbnb? I feel like Illinois is one of the most restrictive states with laws regarding utilizing that way of renting. 

Hello all!

I have a few quick questions in terms of house hacking and your thoughts on where I should go with this route specifically the Chicago southwestern suburbs in today's extremely hot market. I graduated last May and work a full-time job as a commercial property tax consultant with about $20,000 in savings and counting. The past several months I have gotten several properties under contract in the Elmwood Park area and surrounding areas, but all have fallen through due to FHA financing (owner did not accept this financing route, buildings had too many repairs needed to pass FHA inspection) or the numbers simply did not work in the end. Do you suggest I keep saving to increase my reserves to find a better opportunity in an area similar to Elmwood Park / Wheaton (currently living at home with parents, but plan on moving out by end of March. I want to find a similar (B+ to B-) area). The price points for areas such as this one are well beyond my financing limit for the numbers to work out and cover my mortgage (mainly looking at duplexes) in today's market. On the other hand, do you suggest I start with single family home investing and renting a cheap apartment closer to my downtown office in the meantime? I do not plan on house hacking a single family home.

Thank you!